PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Running a Porta Potty Business

Choosing Porta Potty Business Software: What to Check Before You Sign Up

Most software demos look good. The question is whether the system fits how a portable toilet company actually works when a truck is on the road and the phone is ringing. Use this checklist before you commit to anything.

Start From Your Own Records

If you have not moved off paper yet, read Getting a Portable Toilet Business Off Paper and Spreadsheets first. It helps to know what you track today before you judge what a system tracks for you.

Bring three real customers to every demo or trial: a contractor with several job sites, an event with a restroom trailer and hand wash stations, and a homeowner with one unit for a remodel. If the software cannot handle all three cleanly, it will not handle your business.

Weekly Service Has to Come Due on Its Own

This is the first and most important test. Generic field-service software is built around one-time jobs. A porta potty company runs on repeat service. Ask how a weekly service site shows up when it is due, and what happens when it is late.

In PortaPottyBossPro, each service has a minimum number of days between visits. Sites come due on their own and show up on the Waiting List, a live map and list with pins colored by status: not due yet, due now, and overdue past a 7-day grace. Nobody has to rebuild the week from memory.

Units Have to Ride on the Job

A tech needs to know what is on the site before they pull up. Check that each job can carry the unit type, the quantity, the unit numbers and the placement notes, and that those details show on the driver's phone. Unit types in PortaPottyBossPro include Standard, Deluxe Flushing, ADA Accessible, High-Rise or Crane, Hand Wash Station and Restroom Trailer. The details show under the address on the office lists and on the driver app.

Rental Days Have to Bill Themselves

Ask how the system handles a unit that stays past its rental period. If the answer is that someone checks a report and adds a line, that line will get missed. PortaPottyBossPro tracks the delivered date, the picked-up date, the days included and a per-day rate after that. The lists show how long each unit has been out and how many days are extra, and the extra days are added to the invoice automatically.

Check the Driver App on a Real Phone

Have one of your techs try the driver app during the trial, not just the owner. Things to check:

• Can they log in quickly with a company login and their own PIN?
• Are the day's jobs in route order with a Map button for navigation?
• Do they see the units and placement notes without digging?
• Can they Start, Skip and Complete with a tap, and add photos?
• Does the customer get on-the-way and arrived texts without the tech typing anything?

If your techs will not use it, the office will not get accurate information, and the rest of the system falls apart. Pay attention to how the app behaves on a busy morning, not just a quiet test. A tech with gloves on and a line of trucks behind him needs big buttons and a short list, not menus.

Look at What the Customer Sees

Your customers will judge you partly by what your software shows them. Look at the customer app: can a customer see where the truck is on today's route, request a service, update a card on file, see invoices and pay? Can they choose alerts for the night before, when they are next, and when the tech arrives? These features cut down on calls to the office.

Check Billing for Contractors

Contractors with many sites usually want one bill a month. Ask whether the system can send one statement covering every job at every one of their sites, with each line labeled by site address. PortaPottyBossPro calls this monthly account billing. Also check sales tax per site, card-on-file charging through Stripe, and past-due follow-up.

Ask, too, how a new customer gets into the system. Estimates built from your service list that the customer approves online, and website request and sign-up forms that land in one place, save the office from retyping every new rental. One click to turn a sign-up into a client is the kind of small thing you will notice every day.

Price and Users

Read the pricing carefully. Some systems charge per user, which punishes you for hiring. PortaPottyBossPro is $59, $89 or $199 a month for Start, Pro and Crew, never per user. What Porta Potty Business Software Costs, and What You Get for It breaks this down.

For the full picture of features built for portable toilet companies, see the Porta Potty Business Software page.